B is for Brothers

Other things may change us, but we start and end with family.
--Anthony Brandt

I was sitting around the table with a bunch of my siblings a few days ago (a bunch still doesn't include them all; I have 6 brothers and sisters) and we discussed whether we would still be friends if we had not been siblings. For instance, one of my brothers and I are very different. We both pretty much agreed that if we had met in law school or somewhere where there was a good chance of a friendship formulating, we probably would have had nothing to do with each other.

He's Mr.-put-together, and I am not. He's a hard worker, and although I work hard, I'm lazy by nature. He's (or was) a gym rat, and I smoked a couple packs a day and rarely exerted any energy.

Yea.

We would have had nothing to do with each other at all.

On the other hand…

…as things stand, we're pretty close. We go out together when our schedules permit. We speak pretty candidly and mature with each other. Etc.

So at the time, I was feeling a little guilty inside, thinking perhaps it was somewhat of a mean-spirited conversation. Telling my brother (and him agreeing) that we normally wouldn’t like each other.

But the more it has marinated, the more I've realized how beautiful that conversation really was.

There could be someone who you wouldn’t even toss a penny at if you met them on the street. They could act differently, talk differently, even believe differently. But. If they're born to the same parents that you're born to, and if you're raised with a strong sense of the importance of sharing blood, you would take a bullet for them without even thinking twice about it.

I would.

Take a bullet for you.

But if I had met you outside of the family, I might have been the one delivering it.

;)

LOVE THY FRANKENSTEIN

When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them. -Rodney Dangerfield

(This post is not directed specifically at my parents. I love them both and think they were and continue to be great parents. But each generation raises their children slightly differently. All I'm saying is that I think I would implement these changes when my turn comes around.)


Man: the ultimate accretion of nature and nurture. Some say it's all one, some the other, most agree it's a healthy portion of both.
Whose nature? The genes the parents put together.
Whose nurture? Largely the parents and the environment the parents chose.

So all copping out aside, who I am today is, in a large part, shaped by actions and decisions others have taken a long time ago. Technically and non-technically speaking, I am their creation.

It must suck when your own creation doesn’t do what you wanted it to do.

My views on parenting (although I am not yet a parent): Work hard throughout the years to instill all the values, ethics and beliefs that you think are important and integral for your child to possess. Do your best with that. Then, when the time comes (and this time will vary based on the independence of the person you just created) (and this person's independence will vary based on the environment you suckled him in) you take your precious soapbox car, and you push it down that hill and you root for it with all your heart. You root for it not because you want that prize if it hits the finish-line first. And not because you want it to be the smoothest ride of all the other little creations speeding down that hill. No. You root for it because when you were first handed it, it was a blank slate. Innocent and pure. And however fast it goes now, or however beautiful its inner workings are, is almost a direct causation of what you as a parent have done to it. You root for it because the building process and your job is done (or if not done, then in a very different stage/phase than it used to be), and now you get to sit back and watch it go on its own. And if it goes how you wanted it to: awesome. And if it goes sideways instead, or decides even to come back up that hill: you laugh and love it all the same, because that funny thing going sideways, that creation of yours, is finally making its own decisions.

What? Those aren’t the decisions you had in mind when you trained it? You think you failed? WRONG. I mean, you didn’t really expect the inertia you gave it to last forever did you? In fact, what better way to see that you actually succeeded in creating something, than to see it finally making its own choices and creating its own path?

If you only love it…no, let me rephrase, because it's too easy to love, loving doesn’t always take any effort, it can be a human emotion you just feel without having chosen to feel…If you only accept it and cherish it and root for it based on whether it follows the path you wanted it to take, then you are nothing but a phony. All you wanted was the prize at the end of the race. Nothing more.

Did you stick to every decision your parents laid out for you? If you did, then the child wasn’t raised by his parents but by an extension, the robotic arms, of the grandparents…or perhaps even further back. But, realistically, you did make your own choices; you are not your parents. You have your life and you've done with it as you wanted to based on what you believed in. And now you would deny that same freedom to your child?

I could be very mistaken here. But I'm using the values I feel I was instilled with to choose between right and wrong.

That is all I know how to do.

Follow the yellow brick road

"I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people."
-Desiderius Erasmus (Some Dutch humanist dude)



This probably won't be a very popular post.
It won't be a long one either. Just a random thought that's been floating around in my mind for a while….Here goes:

I have been an avid reader of fantasy fiction for many years. Along with this comes some knowledge of different ancient empires (be it Byzantine, Roman etc…) as many fantasy authors base their neo-worlds on those that really existed once upon a time. In comparing our cultures I am often plagued with a weird thought. Has the advancement of society killed humanity?

Huh? What? What's this crap he's spouting now? Time to stop reading this nutjob. Right?

This is what I mean. Man is born with a certain repertoire of emotions that he brandishes at different points in his life. Some events call for happiness and joy, while others call for sorrow and possibly even anger.
Nowadays, a large swath of these emotions has been cut out of us. We are not allowed to feel anger when it is often the evolutionary response because that would not be right. Anger solves nothing. We are not allowed to be depressed at times, because that will not advance your position in life at all. And so on.
There are pills and therapy and people to talk to that can fix any emotional problem you can possibly have. We only want the top half of the emotions. We want happiness. Yes. That's right. Smile.
Is it any wonder at all then that it seems happiness today is more elusive than it ever was? I go to work every day and see so many people (possibly even a majority) just going through the motions. Work. Home. Work. Etc.
Is it possible that without feeling the bottom half, the dirty bastard brothers of the emotions we cherish, we cannot fully appreciate or even ever attain the top halves?
Without feeling sadness, and often, will you ever really appreciate what it means not to be sad?
If we totally eliminate one half, I think we eliminate the other side as well.
Just a thought.
What a nutjob.

The center of my own universe — sometimes

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.

—William Shakespeare


Do I, should I, care about what other people think of me?

Anyone who says he doesn’t care at all - just doesn’t give a damn whatsoever - is clearly lying. In fact, that person, I have usually found, is the one who cares the most. It almost falls into the "extreme homophobe turns out to be gay category."

But back to me.

Since I was young and small and cute I have been walking around in a trench-coat. (Yes there are clothes underneath.) It's not because I think it looks cool, but maybe it is. It's not cause it keeps me warm, but sometimes it does. It's just…that's me. I don't remember why I started wearing one, perhaps at the time I was the pre-Neo pre-Columbine trend-setter of the look and thought it was badass. I do realize it looks semi-ridiculous. In fact, when I walk alone at night, people (usually women) often cross the street to avoid me, I assume because of the whole trench-coat look.

I realize that so far my thoughts are all over the place, and will continue to be for a little bit, but hopefully I can make a solid point toward the end in summation.

When I tried to quit smoking four or five months ago, I failed for one reason. It was not an addiction to nicotine. I often go hours and sometimes two days without puffing a single drag, and at other times will smoke five or six cigarettes in a half hour. I have no, or more honestly, very little craving for nicotine. I failed because after smoking for half my life, I have convinced my immature mind that it is part of my image. When I walk down a street, there are times that if I can't have a cigarette in my hand, I feel almost as if I am naked and that I am missing one of my arms. I need to have it in my fingers, to my mouth, inhale, exhale, etc. Sure, a part of that is the nicotine, and a part is the hand/oral fixation, but most of it, for me at least, is that I'm just so damn used to doing it, that without it, sadly, I feel incomplete. (I have a feeling at least a couple of smokers out there will know what I'm talking about.)

Okay, this isn’t about smoking. Or trench-coat wearing. It's about image. Thirst is nothing.

I know a girl who will not leave her house if she doesn’t feel that she is dressed, brushed, makeupped, perfectly. She just won't go. And I find myself thinking that she is truly society's version of a modern slave. She cannot operate without having everyone else's approval. Though she never told me this, I think that because of mass media's constant showing of women for their looks, she feels as if that is the only thing she should be judged on, and once that's the case, who can fault her for trying to make that perfect?

Of course I feel that I am judged on far more than my looks, and even if the looks are down some days, the mind is not.

That is obviously an extreme example. Here's a better one. Me again.

I shaved my head off a week ago. It's something I do about once a year. Unanimously, my family and friends weigh in every single time with either how horrible I look, or, the sweeter ones, how I look "slightly" better with hair. If my family is telling me this, it must look pretty damn bad.
But it feels so good.
For whatever reasons (showering, breezes, rain, etc.), it just feels real good to me not to have long hair on my skull.
But, if that's the case, why do I always hesitate before I do it? Why don't I always keep it super-short?
Am I pandering to how other people think I should look during 4/5ths of the year instead of doing what I enjoy? Am I narcissistic or, perhaps worse, a slave just as she is?

So here I arrive at some sort of middle ground. The rule would be something like "Care about what other people think of you, but not to a debilitating point."
But where's the logic behind that? Why care at all?

On the subway tonight, some 20-something year old guy was talking on his cell-phone while seated next to a mother and her seven or eight year old son. He was talking on his phone and cursing at a clip of about one cure for every forty or fifty words. Not an extraordinary amount. Probably the norm for his age. But, jeez, can't he show a little consideration for the fact that he is sitting next to some kid whose mind he's sullying?
(A separate issue would be if the mother should have moved her child elsewhere, but that's neither here nor there.) Perhaps he just doesn’t give a damn about his actions and what other people think of them. His disdain for the ramifications of his action is why I disapproved of what he did.

So now I have confused and garbled two or three separate issues.
Self image
Caring about what other's think of said image
This last issue of ramifications of which I shall not return to

A. The self image
Everybody has one. Part of mine is immature, and even killing me in the case of smoking.
B. Caring about said image
I never feel naked without a cigarette when I'm the only one around. I never feel funny wearing sweatpants and boots in my backyard when no one is around, so a part of image is definitely tied in to other people being around.

If I was the only person around, I would definitely keep my head shaved at all times. Some people might answer for me - try to help me out - by saying that I don't do it for professional reasons. But that wouldn’t be truth. I've never done anything in terms of image to appease any job's requirements of appearance. So I think it is concluded that I definitely do care about what other people think of me.

Now. Is that wrong? Or bad?

The only reasoning I can come up with now is this: There is a certain pleasure I take in doing x. Let's say, for this post's sake, x will remain shaving my head. There is, however, an altogether separate pleasure I take in having someone say (even with their eyes) (or even if it doesn’t really happen, the fact that it happens in my head, I still get the enjoyment) "Oh, he's good looking."
So it's a simple mathematical equation (the only kind I can do) where I'm constantly weighing which pleasure is worth more to me at any given time. It's not that I'm a slave to what others think, but that I derive some joy from having them think a certain thing.
(Did I just avoid the whole issue though? I'm saying I take joy in what they think, but wasn’t that the original question? Why would anyone take such joy?)

Of course, looks, is just an easy example. This could have been discussed in terms of personality, intelligence, etc. But I figured this would be boring enough to most as is.

As things remain, tomorrow morning I will get up, get dressed, apply my trench-coat, light up my cigarette as soon as I get to the end of my block, and enjoy the sunlight on my now-bald head. You're all invited.

I'M THE GREATE-- oww. That hurt.

"It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle; it is defeat that makes men invincible." -- Henry Ward Beecher


I played Scrabble once or twice in my youth and was okay at it. We (My six siblings and I) always used to fight over who gets to have my mother on their team because she was the crossword puzzle guru and usually her team won. Then my eldest sister got married and everyone wanted my bother-in-law on their team, because he was the really smart science guy. It was a fun game. And that was that.

Then I was a little bit older and I was the one doing crossword puzzles and word jumbles in the comics section, and was pretty damned good at them. Alas, my siblings had all moved out already and there were no more tests of testosterone around a Scrabble board. That seemed to be that.

But one day I picked up a book in Barnes and Noble named "Word Freak." It was about one man's slow descent into the addicting world of professional Scrabble play. I was about half-way through it, my blood was pumping, and I thought, I can do this!
So I searched online and found a local Scrabble club. A bunch of old people probably. I was going to go show them how it was done. Time to ruin the retirements of many.

I get to this club, and sure enough, besides one young lady (whom I'm still friends with) it was a bunch of men and women well past the age of 60. (Sorry, Dad, that's old in my book.) I nonchalantly walk up to the crinkly old woman who seems to be in charge and say "I'm looking to play some Scrabble."
She doesn’t answer.
Is she deaf?
"I'm looking to play so—"
"I know, honey, I heard you the first time. Who else would come to a Scrabble club besides those looking to play Scrabble? Just be patient."
"Oh."

Finally, enough people shuffle into the room that the lady starts to match people up to play against each other in 1 on 1 style Scrabble (the only way the pros play).
She turns to me.
"Have you ever played before, sweety?"
"Oh, yea. Tons."
"How good are you?"
Here I'm thinking, c'mon these people are not the pro players of "Word freak" fame. These are a bunch of retired old people spending some quality time with each other in Fort Lauderdale. I'm going to rip them each a new IRA.
"I'm the best," I said.
"Ooh, okay, a real player huh? Okay well, you're going to play against Steve. He's over in that corner."
She points me to a man that appears to be somewhere in his mid to late 50's, perhaps in his early 60's. His hair is pretty much all white, but his eyes are blue ice. He is concentrating on the board and there's nothing on it yet. Hmm, a challenge?

I sit down across from him and he extends his hand.
"Steve Polatnick."
"Fisch."
And the game begins.

(Quick summation of Scrabble rules: The bag has 100 tiles in it, with 1 letter printed on each tile. Each letter has a different point value. Players each pick 7 tiles from the bag and put them on their rack. Player tries to make a word for the highest point value each turn. This is not always the longest word, sometimes it's a word that hits certain 'bonus' spots on the board. If a player manages to use all 7 of his tiles on 1 turn, player gets a 50 point bonus, called a 'bingo.' After player's turn, player picks from the bag the amount of tiles just used on last turn, so that player's rack always has 7 tiles on it. If a player puts down a word and the other player thinks the word is bogus, or misspelled, the other player has the right to 'challenge' the word. Moderator looks in the official scrabble dictionary. If player's word is valid, the challenger loses his turn. If the word is invalid, the word comes off the board, along with any points scored by it, and the one who put down the bogus word loses his turn.)

We were playing with a chess timer. We each have 25 minutes for the whole game. Time is of the issue. I look at my first rack of words. I find the word "Theater." Bingo. 50 point bonus. Yeah, baby.

"Nice play," Steve says.
"Sure was," I cockify.

He then starts to shuffle his tiles and think. And think. And think. It's to my advantage because he's using a hell of a lot of time off of his 25 minutes. He doesn’t want to use that up. Poor old man, probably doesn’t have many thinking synapses left in his head.

"Thinking hard?" I ask.
No response.

He uses all 7 of his tiles, attaching them to my 'A' from 'theater' and makes the word 'ABAMPERE.'

"What the hell is that?" I say. "I think you're making it up. I never heard of that. I challenge!"

Moderator comes over. Opens dictionary. Word is valid. I lose my next turn.

"Lucky, Man. You were pretty lucky."
"Yup," he says.

About 8 seconds later he makes another bingo. This time he puts the word 'BAASKAAP' down, attaching to his 'P' from before.

"What the ****? I challenge!"

Moderator comes over. Opens dictionary. Word is valid. I lose my next turn.

Fast-forward about 20 minutes. I put down the 3 letter word 'DEM.'
"I challenge," Steve says.
"Haha. You challenge? Of course that's good. Don't you know your 3 letter words?"
(At this point I am second-guessing my word. I could never remember which one was valid 'SEN' or 'DEM.' Now I'm thinking uh-oh was it the other one?)

Moderator comes over. Opens dictionary. Word is invalid. I lose my next turn.

By the time I walk out of there, I have suffered two crushing defeats to Steve Polatnick. I was talking trash to him almost the whole time with no responses, but I never even came close.
The scores were lopsided.
545-237
601-244
(or something very close to that)

Humiliation. Destroyed by an old man in Fort Lauderdale. Destroyed.

I get home and had no interest in reading the other half of the book. To hell with scrabble. About a week later, I do pick up the book and start reading again. When I hit the chapter on THE 4TH HIGHEST RATED PLAYER IN THE WORLD STEVE POLATNICK my stomach drops. (The ratings fluctuate, but at the time he was 4th.) I mean, on one hand, I guess that's good. Humiliated not by your average Joe but by a true champion. On the other hand, I remember all my trash-talk. "Haha, don’t you know your 3 letter words?" A whole different kind of embarrassment sets in.

He must have looked at me like a cockroach. He sure stepped on me like one.

Sure enough, a glutton for punishment, I went back to the club a couple weeks later. I got a bunch of knowing smiles from all the old people. I couldn’t tell if the smiles meant "Oh, look there goes that nice young boy who plays scrabble. He's been here before."
Or, "Oh, look there goes that patronizing retard of a child. He came, he saw, he got obliterated muhahahaha."

But they were all nice. I played a regular old man that time, and narrowly won by 20 points. Afterwards I offered to buy Steve a drink, which he accepted. He then coached me a little, and my scrabble skills started to change. That's a different story though.

For now. I refer you all to my undefeated boxing record instead.

A couple shots to the head

Upon the plains of hesitation, lie bleached the bones of millions who, on the threshold of victory, sat to wait, and waiting, they died. – Anonymous


The sweat pouring down my forehead was burning my eyes, making me blink rapidly. I felt nauseous. I hate nausea. The short, black, muscular stranger standing over me was screaming in my face.
"When you can't take any more, instead of giving up, just wait five seconds. Five seconds man. I promise you five seconds after you feel like giving up, he's going to give up first."
Who is this guy in my face?
Why is there three of him?

Let me start from the beginning.

I was 20. I lived in Miami. My friends decided that this Thursday night we were going to go to an amateur boxing club. Sounded like fun to me.
Atlantis, at one point, was a mix between a nightclub and a boxing gym. On certain nights, they had the deejay spinning the records and the people dancing, while two punks fought it out in the ring placed smack in the center of the dance floor.
My buddy Rimon had boxed there three times before and on the ride over he recounted his glory. "Easy victories." Hell, the way he made it sound, it was kind of like one of those punching machines in the video-arcades: You get up, punch a couple times, and then go back to drinking and chilling. We were going to have a blast.
I was more concerned with something else. Rimon's sister was with us. Crush. Maybe I'd talk to her for a few minutes tonight. We were going to have a blast.

I wish they had told me before they picked me up that we were going boxing. I had on my usual steel-toe four-pounds-each boots. Between that and smoking like a chimney, I probably couldn’t even outrun a house. But hey, I was going to punch, not to run.

So we get there and the place is pretty empty. Maybe thirty or forty people milling about, enjoying the end of another workweek. Four of us, Rimon, his younger beast-sized brother Goel, My cousin and I, all fill out release forms for the boxing; basically if we got our necks snapped the club wasn’t responsible. Also, if we won, we get a video of the fight and 50 dollar bar tab.

The first glimmer of doubt sets in.

"I'm definitely not going first," I say.
"You go whenever they call you up," Rimon says.

Now my heart was racing a little bit, but nothing too serious. I mean, worst comes to worst I get beat. Big deal. My ego can handle that. Maybe.

So we go about doing the usual club thing as they wait for the club to fill up before the boxing begins. The club fills up. The boxing begins.

The first person called up was Goel, Rimon's brother. Let me describe Goel. He's two years younger than me, but about three inches taller (and I'm 6-2) and much broader. He's a big guy and appears to be a powerful man. I never tangled with him so I can't vouch for his strength, but he seemed strong.

This guy knocked the crap out of him.

The announcer, trying to keep the fight interesting, was shouting slogans for the crowd during the fight. "He takes a licking and keeps on ticking." This because Goel kept getting knocked down but kept getting back up. I shall clarify. If you have that image of Rocky Balboa in your head, of that noble boxer being out-skilled, but with a heart of a champion, you have the wrong picture. This kid was bloody and black and blue and just so disoriented he didn’t even know he was in a boxing match anymore. He was getting up because he thought everyone was laughing at him for being drunk and he was just trying to get on his feet to leave the ring. But every time he did, WHOMP. (Afterwards he explained the mixture of alcohol and other stuff made him black out for the whole fight.)

Goel looked like his head had been put through a meat grinder by the time they stopped the fight. I didn't really feel like boxing anymore.

Next up they called Rimon. Surely Rimon will re-encourage me. After all, he is 3 and 0 thus far. 3 wins, no losses. And they announce it as such while he waves his hands in the air. I can't imagine waving my hands in the air after my brother got the life beaten out of him, but to each our own. Anyway. "Watch me," he said. "I'll show you how a Ducky boy fights." (His little Jewish gang = the Ducky boys.) The ref stops the fight in the second round. Apparently Ducky boys fight with their hands too low and their legs too slow. His right cheek was all puffy and he couldn’t really stand straight. 3 wins, 1 loss.

There's no effin way I'm getting in that ring. The big guy and the pro both have been destroyed, and I'm gonna go in there? I'm smarter than that.

Next they call up my cousin, but wait. Before he makes it to the ring they announce his opponent. The club's favorite son. I don't remember his name, but I do his record. 11 wins, no losses. He is about 5-11, muscular, and tattooed. My cousin sides over to me and says he isn’t boxing. No way, no how. See? My blood is smart. We know better than that.

After calling my cousin's name three or four times to no response, the announcer calls mine instead. At this point everyone's watching. The best boxer is in the ring and some other dude just chickened out. This is drama. Like TNT knows drama. People are interested.

He calls out Fisch.
I ain't answering.

He calls my name again.
Rimon's sister waves.
Oh, g-d.

I walk up to the ring and step in. The ref comes over to me, asks if I have a corner-man. A what?
"You know, the guy in the corner who helps you out."
"Uhh, no. I didn’t bring my corner man with me today."

My cousin comes over to my corner. He is grinning ear to ear.
"Yeahhh. Fishbo. Gonna box. Wooooo."
I wish I could share his enthusiasm.

Right before the fight starts a rough-looking, pumped up black man (I point out his color because we were all a bunch of sheet-white kids) comes over to my corner.
"I'll be your corner-man."
"Uh. Okay. Thanks that would be great. Can you teach me how to box real quickly?"
(When I get nervous I can't stop with the one-liners, always a surefire sign that I'm a mess inside.)

The fight begins and I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.
"Move your legs, don't stand still," my new trainer screams at me. Hah. Easy for him to say, he's wearing sneakers. Me in boots. Thud. Thud.
The tattooed boxer approaches towards me and I didn’t wait. I didn’t do it like on television. I jumped forward into him with my fist extended and it landed on his jaw. I jumped backwards and then did it again. Maybe he thought he was going to fight a boxer. Heh. Poor guy. I was jumping up and down and doing swings that they don't have names for. You know. That stuff you grow up doing with your brothers but no real boxer ever does: fake twice to the right of his head, feint to the left then just slam him in the stomach and the back at the same time.

Apparently I had him outreached. My wingspan is pretty long and it was hard for him to get at me. Round 1 ends and I'm still alive. A problem though. I can't breathe. After three minutes of jumping and running, I'm so out of breath, damn cigarettes, that the whole break I'm just trying to catch my breath.

But I also start to notice something. People are cheering. For me? I don't know. But they're cheering and I like it.

Round 2 went his way. In a big way. His professionalism overcame my wildness and he waited me out, seeing that I was tiring, and just danced around me and delivered some pretty big hits. One was to the back of my head. One to my eye. One to my gut. He was tearing me apart. I did land one monster blow though, right before the bell at the end of round 2. One of those uppercuts that misses 9 out of 10 times. Right up on the bottom of his chin. It felt good. Lucky for me though the bell came when it did, because I was going to collapse.

This is where we started.
"Just five seconds longer, man, from when you're about to give up. He looks strong but you hurt him. He's scared of you."
I doubt he was scared of me. He was the scary one in the ring.
But my corner-man had planted an idea in my head. Fear. What if I made him think I was crazy? I mean, I was standing there in big black boots and an undershirt. I definitely looked the part. I only had x amount of energy left at this point, negative x more like it, and if I used everything I had left to psyche him out, and it didn’t work, I was screwed. It was my best shot though, and I was going to give it a try.
When round 3 started, instead of slumping out to the middle of the ring like I felt, I started dancing. Up and down again, doing my best imitation of what I'd seen on TV. All over the place. Raising my hands in the air. Who's tired now, boy? Huh? I'm just getting started. I smacked my gloves against the side of my head and started to move in.
I knew right when I saw the look in his eyes, it was my fight. It worked. I totally psyched him out. His hands went up but his face said he was done with this fight. He made some half-hearted jab at me and then I connected on the side of his face and he went down. He got back up again, but about 20 seconds later I knocked him down again (on an incredibly lucky swing).
He refused to fight any more.
The ref called it.
It was over.
I raised my hands in glory.
I walked out of the ring.
I collapsed on the floor.

Twenty minutes later, still on the floor, can't see straight. Ambulance. Hospital. Emergency room. Diagnosis: Concussion. Bleeding of the brain. He knocked my skull one way, and my brain swam the other and splat.

My cousin, grrrr, called my parents, for whom at that point it was routine to be woken in the middle of the night by Fisch-emergencies. I'm glad they came though. My cousin also thanked me the next day for the 50 dollar bar tab. He figured I wouldn’t be needing it. (He totally redeemed himself though by also picking up for me the video of this fight.)

My dad's synagogue's dinner was the next night and I couldn’t stand. Every time I tried, the whole room swam away from me and I had to throw up. I had headaches for another two or three months.
But, I tell ya, I learned something that night.

It sure feels good to win.

Game Over

"Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night." - William Blake.


Kevin Hall: You know what the definition of a "Dilemma" is?
Me: Yea, umm, a problem. When you don't know whether to do one thing or another.
Hall: You're missing the essence of the definition of the word.
Me: Umm, let me try again. When you don't know whether to do something or something else?
Hall: You just said that. And you were my star student? Pshaw.

(He goes back to drinking his beer and smoking his Winston, as if we didn’t just leave a conversation right in the middle. Like he's ready to move on to the next thing.)

Me: Well?
Hall: Well what?
Me: You going to tell me what dilemma means or what?
Hall: Oh, you're asking me to teach you something, huh. And here I thought you had moved on from learning. Okay. A dilemma is an UNSOLVABLE problem. If it were solvable, it would be a "False Dilemma."

(Kevin Hall was the dean of the FIU journalism department and still is a giant in his field. He's also a full-fledged Irish drinker. So if you ever want to chill with him, just show up at Molly Brown's and order a Guinness.)

So it appears that I have a dilemma. And I won't know the answer until I'm dead; if then. See, I recently discovered that this online game I play has a little game timer on it that tells you exactly how many hours you've spent playing the game. I foolishly checked the timer, and wished I hadn't. In the last 11 months, I have spent 24 days, 8 hours, and 6 minutes playing this game. 24 days? That's 24 hours each, the days are not prorated. I have spent a month of "awake" time playing a game??
The first thing I did was calculate how much money I could have made if I put those hours into work at the salary I am currently making now per hour. Hmm 24 days = 576 hours which equals HOLY CRAP. That's a lot of dollars.

Now, it sounds like I'm just a gaming nerd and where lies the dilemma you ask? Very simply like this: People always tell me, and sometimes I feel that, playing games, be it video games, poker, TV, movies, etc…is a waste of valuable time. Sure, do it in moderation, but too much and you're wasting your life away. I don't think I can agree with that.

Why do I go to work? Why do I wrench myself out of bed to go to work and put in another day of the grind. Just so I can pay my rent and buy some food to sustain myself so that I can do it all over again the next day? No Sir. I go to work so I can afford, on my own time, to do as I please. So that during the times I'm not working for the Man, I'm working for Fisch instead. So, if I enjoy doing x, whatever x happens to be that week, isn't that a worthwhile expenditure of time, as long as I'm covering my responsibilities as well? No matter how much time I'm putting into x?

I mean, what would I really be doing with that time anyway? I don’t exactly have the laboratory set up just yet to find a cure for cancer. I don't have children yet who need me. If I was spending the same time out with people every day, others would instead say, "Oh, look, he's so social. That's nice and healthy." To Hell with those others. I have my friends and I see them plenty. If I want to spend the next 16 hours locked in my hole of an apartment playing some RPG by the name of "nerd city" then that’s exactly what I'll do.

But am I wrong? Did G-d, or whatever higher power anyone believes or doesn’t believe in, really put me here so I can spend a huge chunk of my time accomplishing exactly nothing but self-gratification? How am I any different than a monkey? Eat, sleep, have some fun, make a couple other people smile, and then do it all over again. Perhaps I'm not. But I do believe I'm supposed to be. I just don't know exactly how. What would I be doing with all that time? Some people have longer work hours. No thanks. Others spend that time clothes shopping or at clubs. No thanks.

Bottom line is I have a dilemma. I don't know if there is a problem at all. And even if there is, I don't know what else I'd do differently anyway. And I cannot solve this issue without definite information from a correct source. But no one on this world qualifies as a correct source to me. Because all anyone else is doing, is telling me how they spent THEIR time, and telling me I should spend mine the same way. But they made their choice and who says they were right? I sure don't know that they are. Maybe some day the epiphany will strike, or perhaps when I'm dead I shall pay for my mis-choices.

For now though…I got an hour to kill, I think I'm gonna go play a little…